Education

Democrats are committed to ensuring all Americans have access to a high-quality education. If our nation is going to remain the world’s leader, we must not lag our global competitors in education. Democrats are focused on making higher education and skills training more accessible, reducing high school dropout rates, and providing students with the support they need to secure well-paying jobs.

From day one, the Trump Administration has undermined protections for and disinvested in America’s students. President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget proposes to cut teacher training and literacy programs and reduces funding for the schools and communities most in need. Congressional Republicans have also proposed extreme funding bills that dramatically cut education and job training programs, threatening our ability to build a competitive workforce and help more Americans find good-paying work.

Democrats are fighting to protect families from these harmful cuts and have a strong record of making investments that will strengthen education. During the worst of the Great Recession, Democrats helped prevent 300,000 layoffs of teachers and other important school personnel across our nation - layoffs that would have crowded our classrooms and harmed the quality of our kids’ education. We also helped save additional jobs across the country when Congress approved additional aid for K-12 educators in 2010.

While Republicans voted to cut Pell grants, which would affect nearly 10 million students, Democrats have been committed to making higher education more accessible and affordable for students. During the 111th Congress, under a Democratic majority, Democrats increased Pell grants, cut red tape in the loan process and made it easier to repay student loans once students join the workforce. We enacted a major reform bill that ended wasteful taxpayer subsidies to big banks and directed the savings to helping students instead. Democrats also made record investments in community colleges and minority-serving higher education institutions.

Today, House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD) and Rep. Phil Roe, M.D. (R-TN) introduced HR 2285, the School-Based Respiratory Health Management Act, legislation that encourages states to help ensure students with reversible lower airway disorders, such as asthma, have assistance at school with managing their chronic disease and can excel in any environment.

When Congress first passed the legislation that would become known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and in subsequent reauthorizations, the intent of lawmakers was clear: that students with disabilities deserve a meaningful and material education benefit, not just a bare minimum of effort from school districts.

As our friends in the press get ready to cover Speaker Ryan’s town hall with millennials at Georgetown University this afternoon, your ever-helpful Whip press shop has put together a few questions you could ask the Speaker: